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Owning Your Story with Dr. Andrea Gleim · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Very excited to as MICUs today. Doctor Andrea Gleam Andrea.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome, Thank you for having me.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: You are welcome.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Andrea Gleam is a bilingual psychologist, empowerment coach, and
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  Speaker 2: speaker with over ten years of experience helping high achieving
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  Speaker 2: professionals navigate identity, leadership and life transitions. She's a founder
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  Speaker 2: of Mindfully Mind Counseling Center and adjunct professor at Felician University,
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  Speaker 2: where she's taught courses such as Psychopharmacology, Theories of Personality Disorder,
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  Speaker 2: and Introduction to Counseling. Proud Salvadorian and Puerto Rican Latina
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  Speaker 2: and first generation college graduate, doctor Gleam how his clients
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  Speaker 2: to own their stories without code switching. Andrea, welcome the AUGUSTA.
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  Speaker 2: All right, before we get go in here, share with
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  Speaker 2: the listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently,
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  Speaker 2: and then we'll dive in.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, so originally, so I was born and raised in
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  Speaker 4: New Jersey. Family of origin, like you mentioned, is Salvadorian
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  Speaker 4: and Puerto Rican, and now I live in Tampa, Florida.
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  Speaker 3: So that has been a life transition.
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  Speaker 2: I go, all right, so let's get going here. How
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  Speaker 2: did how did all of this start, this interest in
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  Speaker 2: working with other people, in becoming a therapist? How did
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  Speaker 2: it start for you?
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  Speaker 4: I mean, when I was younger, I had family members
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  Speaker 4: who had experienced a lot of different health conditions, and
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  Speaker 4: when I was younger, I thought that I wanted to
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  Speaker 4: go in and be a cartologist or some other sort
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: of specialists. And then I went to school and then
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  Speaker 4: I realized that although I am fascinated with how our
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  Speaker 4: body works, I'm actually more fascinated with our mind and
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  Speaker 4: why we do the things that we do right, And
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  Speaker 4: so usually our behaviors are triggered by experiences, past experiences,
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  Speaker 4: and so that led me to pursue a career into psychology.
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  Speaker 4: When I was in grad school, I was working at
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  Speaker 4: infertility clinic and that was very helpful in that while inspiring,
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  Speaker 4: because there was a lot of other counselors that were
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  Speaker 4: there that were working with couples that were going through
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  Speaker 4: IVF treatment and different types of infertility treatment, whether they
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  Speaker 4: needed to get a surrogate or a donor. And being
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  Speaker 4: able to process that and be able to get through
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  Speaker 4: the emotional components of that with the couple, I think
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  Speaker 4: was very inspiring, and that actually was what led me
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  Speaker 4: to go and pursue higher education.
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  Speaker 2: What about that experience, specifically couples going through IVF. It's
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  Speaker 2: interesting because I just interviewed someone about that and learned
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more from myself. But it obviously can
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  Speaker 2: be and most often is very emotional, if not yes,
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  Speaker 2: traumatic experience. But how did you see that, how did
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  Speaker 2: you respond? What specifically got you and inspired you?
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  Speaker 4: What inspired me was the fact that these couples were
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  Speaker 4: really really going through this experience. And although I think
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  Speaker 4: what I've noticed is that people think that once you
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  Speaker 4: get a successful pregnancy, it's like, Yay, we made it,
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  Speaker 4: and that can be very true, but there's also the
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  Speaker 4: other parts, right, the parts that got them to a
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  Speaker 4: successful pregnancy, the things that people don't see, the injections,
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  Speaker 4: the medications, the cycle, the unsuccessful cycles that probably led
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  Speaker 4: to that successful pregnancy, because not every time does it
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  Speaker 4: work the first time around, right, So being able to
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  Speaker 4: really go through that emotional process and then being able
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  Speaker 4: to see couples really navigate that has been very rewarding.
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  Speaker 4: And then you know, when I experienced it for the
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  Speaker 4: first time and being able to see that and making
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  Speaker 4: decisions of like, Okay, are we going to go for
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  Speaker 4: use a surrogate, what does that look like? Are we
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  Speaker 4: going to have a donorg what does that look like?
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  Speaker 3: Right?
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  Speaker 4: And so being able to navigate all of those things,
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  Speaker 4: essentially the emotional components of all of that, and being
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  Speaker 4: able to get to the point where it is it
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  Speaker 4: is traumatic, right, so it's like that's reproductive trauma and
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  Speaker 4: being able to navigate that trauma into developing into parents
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  Speaker 4: and how do you navigate all of those things, like
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  Speaker 4: how do you process all of those feelings that are
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  Speaker 4: coming when you're entering parenthood.
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  Speaker 2: So you clarify this for me, So you were working
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  Speaker 2: as a quote therapist or counselor within this clinic that
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  Speaker 2: was providing the service for couples.
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  Speaker 4: So I actually was not a therapist at the time,
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  Speaker 4: So I was so I was administration and what these
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  Speaker 4: services were services that were provided.
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  Speaker 3: So me being able to see that firsthand.
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  Speaker 4: Was what led me to go back to school and
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  Speaker 4: pursue my higher degree because that's ultimately what I wanted
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  Speaker 4: to do, help help more people and be a clinician.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so you have that experience, you say, screw the administration, Yes,
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to do this. What how do things unfold
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  Speaker 2: for you? What are you thinking?
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  Speaker 3: So I'm thinking how, Well, first it's let's do this.
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  Speaker 3: Let's let's do this.
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  Speaker 4: You know, my dad at first, I remember say, he
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  Speaker 4: was like, I don't know what you're doing because culturally speaking,
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  Speaker 4: we don't tend to go and seek therapy.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So if you go to therapy.
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  Speaker 2: It's a whole other we'll get to that.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's a yes.
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  Speaker 4: So as this is unfolding, my mom is like super
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  Speaker 4: supportive and she's very like, I think that this would
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  Speaker 4: be great for you, go for it. And so then
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  Speaker 4: I get into grad school and I start to see
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  Speaker 4: all the different things of what it takes to be
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  Speaker 4: a therapist, right, And I worked in very different through
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  Speaker 4: my training.
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  Speaker 3: I worked at very different settings.
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  Speaker 4: I worked at community clinics, but I also worked at
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  Speaker 4: homeless shelters, developing a program for the residents at that
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  Speaker 4: homeless shelter to be able to enter or re enter
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  Speaker 4: once they found homes, to be able to re enter society, right,
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  Speaker 4: because what we know is that once they spent a
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  Speaker 4: certain amount of time in homelessness, is really hard for
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  Speaker 4: them to reintegrate into society and be able to give
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  Speaker 4: them tools.
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  Speaker 3: To be able to navigate that.
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  Speaker 4: And so we developed that with one of my professors
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  Speaker 4: and two other colleagues of mine. We started that program
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  Speaker 4: at that shelter. So I've worked in that and then
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  Speaker 4: I've worked at hospitals, I've worked at impatient, I've worked
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  Speaker 4: in many different settings. And what I found is there
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  Speaker 4: are so many stories. There are so many things that
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  Speaker 4: that that lead someone into those situations. Right, It's not
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  Speaker 4: it's not black and white. And I think that for
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  Speaker 4: a lot of people, we look at mental health and
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  Speaker 4: are like, it's depression or it's this, or it's that.
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  Speaker 4: But depression looks so different for so many people, and
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  Speaker 4: it's let's unpack that, let's let's figure it out. And
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  Speaker 4: so that is one of the things that I immediately
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  Speaker 4: was fascinated about. I wanted to know the story I
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  Speaker 4: wanted to know what made you take I want to
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  Speaker 4: I wanted to know the messy things that make you
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  Speaker 4: who you are so that we can then get you
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  Speaker 4: to where you want to be. And how do we
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  Speaker 4: do that in that process?
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  Speaker 2: That's really cool. What were you seeing? How did you learn?
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  Speaker 2: What were you experience experiencing such that you realize it's
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  Speaker 2: not black and white. There are many kind of tributaries
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  Speaker 2: that lee could lead someone to becoming homeless or what
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  Speaker 2: indigened What were you seeing? How did you realize that?
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  Speaker 4: Well, one, you know, family experiences and just stories from
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  Speaker 4: them coming to this country. But there's this one particular
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  Speaker 4: person that I remember and their story was.
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  Speaker 3: Something that has always stuck with me.
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  Speaker 4: And the person was a college professor and she experienced
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  Speaker 4: the loss of her husband.
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  Speaker 3: And because of the loss of her husband, she.
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  Speaker 4: He handled all of the you know, paying the bills,
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  Speaker 4: doing this, doing that. So when he passed away, she
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  Speaker 4: found herself lost, not just grieving her husband, but also
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  Speaker 4: not knowing.
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  Speaker 3: How do I pay my mortgage? And that led her.
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  Speaker 4: To lose everything little by little, and so there was
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  Speaker 4: that grief that came with it.
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  Speaker 3: Right now, she again, she was a college professor.
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  Speaker 4: Right, So we would think that, oh, well, she shouldn't
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  Speaker 4: know how to pay her mortgage, right, But it's not
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  Speaker 4: even about that.
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  Speaker 3: It was not one of the things that she had
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  Speaker 3: to worry about. Her husband took care of all those things.
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  Speaker 4: Her cousin, you know, handle the financials and handled all
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  Speaker 4: these other day to day things that happened with the
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  Speaker 4: home that she didn't really even think that one day
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  Speaker 4: he might not be around and I have to figure
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  Speaker 4: all of these things out for myself. And so that
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  Speaker 4: was what led her into homelessness. And she was living
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  Speaker 4: in her car for a couple of months, and so
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  Speaker 4: she found this homeless shelter that took her in. They
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  Speaker 4: had ended up having a bed open, and she went
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  Speaker 4: into the shelter and then being able to go into
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  Speaker 4: a program and she got helped to really process that
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  Speaker 4: grief and be able to now get skills to be
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  Speaker 4: able to.
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  Speaker 3: Reintegrate.
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  Speaker 2: And so.
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  Speaker 4: You know, we followed her along because ironically enough, after
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  Speaker 4: she left the homeless shelter, she actually was also a
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  Speaker 4: patient at the hospital I was in and that I
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  Speaker 4: was working in, and she ended up reintegrating into society.
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  Speaker 4: She ended up getting in at a teaching classes at
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  Speaker 4: the community college and did a transformation back into her life, right,
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  Speaker 4: so retaking that identity that she lost and redefining that
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  Speaker 4: in this new.
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  Speaker 3: Chapter for life. Right.
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  Speaker 4: So, I think that that story has always stuck with
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  Speaker 4: me throughout my career because it's like it's it's it
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  Speaker 4: was so impactful, and it's one of those things that
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  Speaker 4: you just don't even it's literally you don't know people's
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  Speaker 4: story just by looking at them, right right.
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  Speaker 2: Well, damn, that is a very inspiring sty I'm sure
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  Speaker 2: that would do it to me too. So Okay, we
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  Speaker 2: have this this theme here obviously a story, Yes, what
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  Speaker 2: is it?
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  Speaker 5: Why?
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  Speaker 2: Story?
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  Speaker 3: Why? Story?
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  Speaker 2: What is it that gets you?
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  Speaker 4: Because because we can change the narrative if we don't
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  Speaker 4: like where it's going, and we can't change the past,
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  Speaker 4: so we can't escape it, right, So it's about being
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  Speaker 4: able to accept the past for what it is and
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  Speaker 4: being able to dig deep into it and realize that
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  Speaker 4: some of our strength actually came from that story, even
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  Speaker 4: if it's a very ugly story, right, and being able
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  Speaker 4: to now take the pen and rewrite the narrative of
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  Speaker 4: what you want the future to look like, just because
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  Speaker 4: we experienced it. Doesn't mean that it's what defines us.
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  Speaker 4: It's something that we can take from, pull from and say, Okay,
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  Speaker 4: where do I want my story to go from here?
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  Speaker 4: And everyone has a story. Everyone has a story. Everyone started,
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  Speaker 4: We all started from somewhere and we got to where
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  Speaker 4: we are today through stories.
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  Speaker 2: So this is great, Andrea, because we're talking to you,
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  Speaker 2: how is this relevant for you? Well?
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  Speaker 4: My story, I mean for me, it's I have a
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  Speaker 4: grandmother who is one of my biggest role models and
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  Speaker 4: she had to She's the mother of seven children and
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  Speaker 4: a grandmother of many grandchildren great grandchildren, and she still
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  Speaker 4: is with us today.
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  Speaker 3: Ninety years old.
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  Speaker 4: But I say that her story is so inspiring to
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  Speaker 4: me because she left Al Salvador and left her children behind,
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  Speaker 4: and her youngest was a year old, and.
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  Speaker 3: Then she didn't see.
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  Speaker 4: Her youngest again until she was nine years old. And
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  Speaker 4: it took her that amount of time to be able
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  Speaker 4: to request to be in a place where she can
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  Speaker 4: request the youngest four of her children because her eldest
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  Speaker 4: three were already starting their own families and what have you.
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  Speaker 4: So she requested her youngest four, which one of those
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  Speaker 4: four was my mom. So my mom was a child
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  Speaker 4: when my grandmother left and then she was a young lady,
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: she was in high school when she came to the
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  Speaker 4: United States, right, And so being able to now relearn
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: what it is to live with your mom and kind
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: of like reintroduce herself to your mom, because now my
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  Speaker 4: grandmother was a different person from who she was when
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  Speaker 4: she left, and so was my mom. So it's that
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  Speaker 4: narrative of now my grandmother has to reintroduce herself to
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  Speaker 4: her children, her children need to reintroduce themselves to her,
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  Speaker 4: and being able to navigate that. And so for me,
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  Speaker 4: it's those stories are passed down, right, and so that
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  Speaker 4: is impactful to my mom and how that impacted my mom.
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  Speaker 3: Impacted the different.
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  Speaker 4: Roles that she had in her life, right, so as
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  Speaker 4: a mom or you know, as a sister, as other things.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 4: So now it's going to impact naturally how her and
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  Speaker 4: I the dynamic that she and I have, right. And
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  Speaker 4: so that leads me to where I am now. And
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  Speaker 4: now I'm a mom and I have a ten month
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  Speaker 4: old and I can't even imagine doing what my mom did.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, my grandma did like I can't even fathom, right,
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  Speaker 4: And so I say, now she did that, So I
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  Speaker 4: didn't have to, but it's very impactful and very you know,
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  Speaker 4: It's where I pull strength from sometimes when I feel like, wow,
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  Speaker 4: how am I going to.
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  Speaker 3: Get up in the morning and do this?
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  Speaker 4: And then I'm like, you know what, My grandmother's getting
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  Speaker 4: up at ninety going to her bakery. My mom is
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  Speaker 4: also very strong. I have strong women to pull from,
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  Speaker 4: and so I pull from that story. I pull from
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  Speaker 4: from their strength to be able to move forward. And
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  Speaker 4: I hope that, you know, I can do the same
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  Speaker 4: for mysel when he gets older.
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  Speaker 2: Let me just remind everyone I'm speaking with doctor Andrea Glean.
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  Speaker 5: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so this idea of you know, owning your story,
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  Speaker 2: changing your story, that sounds great on paper.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, come on, no, it's hard.
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  Speaker 2: I ain't no joke, No.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's really.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: How do you so you work with people to one
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: of the things you do is work with people to work.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: How do you do that? Give me a specific example
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  Speaker 2: of someone you've worked with or working with, How do
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: you work with that?
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Well, I've worked with someone who she what well, she
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: is a woman in leadership and she actually is also Latina, right,
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  Speaker 4: So one of the things that she was in encountering
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: is is I am the only one that looks like
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: me in the room right, majority of men, majority or
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: white males. How do I speak up for myself and
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: advocate for what I know is right when I feel
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: maybe inferior in this in this space. And it's not
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: that you know, it was her experience. It was something
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: that she was experiencing when she was walking into the room,
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: but it was also the limiting beliefs, right, So it
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: was the things that she was telling herself walking in
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: to that room and then feeling like a fraud. Although
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: she had done everything that she needed to get into
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: that room. She wouldn't have been able to walk into
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  Speaker 4: that room if she didn't deserve it, And that's so
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: being able to work through the mindset of her limiting
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: beliefs is one of the things that we really worked on.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: It's being able to understand what was happening for her
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: physically because it was also manifesting physically in some like
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: anxious type of symptoms. And so being able to identify
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: what's happened to you physically, what are the thoughts that
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: you're telling yourself, but also being able to change that
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  Speaker 4: narrative and say I don't have to shrink to fit
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: the room. Who I am got me into the room
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  Speaker 4: to begin with? So why do I want to shrink now? Right?
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  Speaker 2: And it's it's I mean, in all fairness, it's it's
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: a cultural ideal that we live in that society. Right.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes people of certain color feelless certain way or are
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: meant to feel a certain way. So you're what you're
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: saying here, if I'm hearing you correctly, is breaking it
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: down into how specifically this is impacting this particular woman.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: What are her thoughts, what are their physical symptoms? And
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: maybe challenging those again that that's not easy to do.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: So for example, you sit down with her, you ask
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: her what are her thoughts, what are her beliefs, what
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: are her limiting beliefs? And how do you work with that?
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  Speaker 2: What do you do?
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  Speaker 3: Well?
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  Speaker 4: I started to ask to ask her what is the
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: evidence to justify that thought?
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  Speaker 2: For example, give you a thought?
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: She might though, so her feeling like I don't know
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  Speaker 4: what I'm doing. I go in here, I don't even
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: know why I'm in this room. I don't know how
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: I got this job. So breaking it down, do you
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  Speaker 4: really not know how you got this job or how
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: you got into that room. Well, what's the evidence how
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: did you get into that room? What's the evidence to
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: that challenges the negative thoughts that you don't deserve to
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: be in that room, right, and then be able to
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: go back to, well, this is something that you This
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  Speaker 4: was a goal of yours ten years ago or five
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  Speaker 4: years ago.
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  Speaker 3: This was a goal and you did in that amount
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  Speaker 3: of time.
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  Speaker 4: You did this, You did this, you did this, you
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: did this, and this is how you got to this place.
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  Speaker 4: So now repeat back to me how you don't deserve
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: to be in that room, right, And it's really that
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: it's like putting it into perspective of wow, Okay, yeah,
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: I did do what I needed to do to get here,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: and I do deserve to be there. But the thing
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: is that our mind is set to wire and fire
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: automatically in a certain way, right, So it takes work
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: to constantly be doing that, And that's like the exhaustion part.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: But I always tell people, once you get to that
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: through that exhaustion part and you're constantly challenging it, the
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: automatic thought may come, but it will feel less exhausting
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: because you already know how to wire it and fire
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: in a different direction. Right, You know how to challenge it.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: You know that it's just a thought, don't fight it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: But the more we want to fight it, the more
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: is that it's gonna the thought is gonna have power
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: over us.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Just it's a thought.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: Once we get to the point where we have learned
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: to challenge the thought, then it just is just a thought.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about the Latino culture. Yes, you and therapy,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I mean you kind of touched on it previously. We
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: don't we don't do therapy in this family, in this culture.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: No, we don't get here you are and here I am.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: So you know, for me, it's it's very true that
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: we don't we don't talk about things.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: We don't really we don't ask for ours side help.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: It's problems you whatever problems you have, you deal with
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: it at home, you know, And it's very Uh, men
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: are not allowed to cry, You're not allowed to be
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: sad like that's not it. And then for women's like
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: you know, you can't make mistakes, you have to you
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: have to act a certain way, right, But it's like
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: all these like pressures that come into it culturally speaking.
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: But it's like we're not going to talk about the pressure.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: We're not going to talk about that weight that this
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: is just a matter of fact. But it's like, no,
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: there is a lot of things that are happening within
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: the dynamic, especially if there's it's it's if it's a
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: family that has more than one sibling, right, more than
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: one child, the dynamics within that.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Right, So especially if it's if there's.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Male uh, male children and female children, even that dynamic,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: the parents acting differently with it with the son than
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: with the daughter, and all these expectations, right, but we
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: don't talk about it. So prime example, when I told
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: my dad I was going to become a psychologist.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: My dad was like, what you're gonna do? What now?
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: So for him it's like I don't, I don't, I
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: don't get it, And for me, it's like, listen, I
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: need going through this process help me understand myself so much,
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: and and being becoming.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Going through what process, the education, the.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Education and being able to and then as a result,
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: I also then went to therapy, right because that my
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: thing was I can't expect someone to sit across from
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: me and do the work if I'm not willing to
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: do the work myself, of course, so.
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: But let me again, I want to drill down here, Andrea,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: how do you did you have to justify wanted to
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: become a psychologist or getting into this field because of
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: your culture?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Well, I will were people looking at you like what
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: are you not? Well?
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: At first?
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: I think people were definitely a lot more close minded,
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: and I would say the older generations I think were
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: a little bit more of like but why. But as
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: things have evolved within my family, it has been very
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: helpful to see how therapy has helped other people in
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: my family, and so I think the narrative has changed.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: I would say within my family has changed in terms
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: of how accepting not everyone, but how accepting we can
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: be in regard to therapy. But for me to be
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: the first one to say, I'm introducing this concept of
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: therapy into this family and I think that everyone should
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: do it, was, you know, at first, not very you know,
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: it wasn't receptive. I will say my mom was very
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: supportive and she thought she believed in therapy, which was
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: nice for me because it helped me to be not
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: feel like I needed to hide what I was doing
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: or to be to feel like my profession was any
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: less than anything else, because that's the other thing, right,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: in Hispanic culture, You're either going to be a lawyer,
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: a doctor, or an engineer, right, Like those are the
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: things that people tell you. Well, I definitely wasn't going
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: to be engineer, and I was not going to be
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: a lawyer. But for me, I was like, well, I
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: could be a doctor, but not the one that you
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: think I'm gonna be. So even navigating that, right, that
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: concept of having to educate my family, and I am
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: a doctor is just a different type of doctor.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: And I might not have gone to med.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: School, but I do still treat individuals and I am
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: a clinician. So it's it's interesting even having that conversation
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: and being able to navigate those waters. But it has,
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: like I said, culturally speaking, it was it's not something
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: that is usually accepted, and it's always you know, around
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: very taboo.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Very Oh you're crazy if you go to therapy.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: But luckily, and I think that this has just been
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: exposure and other people in my family being open to therapy,
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: the younger generations, the narrative is starting to change, which
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I think is very helpful.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: With it with it within the broader community. Do you
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: think it's changing.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Within the broader community. I was in say, just with
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: my family.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: Within the broader community, I think it's still very taboo,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: and you know, it's still trying to break barriers and
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: normalizing it.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: A lot.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Part of that is us having conversations with people in
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: the community about it, and yes there is still resistance
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: towards it, but being able to educate the community off
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: it's not you're not crazy, right, you're not weak.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: You need support. Who doesn't need support? And sometimes we
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: can't get that at home. And it's not that our
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: partners or a family doesn't want to be supportive, is
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: that they don't know how sometimes and that is a barrier. Right.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: You feel like you're drowning, and you're taking on all
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: these things and all these responsibilities.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Well, talk to a therapist who can help you.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: They can help support you when you are in need.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: And I find that a lot with caregivers, right, So
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: when they become caregivers of their parents and having to
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: navigate those waters and the stressor that comes with that,
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: and you know, how do you be there for your
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: parent and also because that is also culturally expected for
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: you to take that role on, but also how do
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: am I there for myself? And so being able to
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: also break that barrier of it's okay to ask for help.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: You don't asking for help doesn't mean that you don't
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: have it to put together. You can have it put
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: together and also need help. Those two things are not
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: mutually exclusive from each other.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: So let's as we kind of wind down here, So
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: how are you working with people now? Who are you
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: working with? One capacity groups, individuals, online, in person? What so?
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I do telehealth, and.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: What I do is I do individual but I also
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: do couples, And with couples it's more of that specialized
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: with infertility, navigating that transition and into parenthood. For individual counseling,
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: I work with high achievers who are navigating either different
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: career transitions, so either they are in their career trying
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: to get a promotion, or they're in their career and
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: are attempting to go into entrepreneurship and being able to
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: also navigate not only those life transitions, but also if
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: there's something culturally speaking, so if I'm working with specifically
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: the Latino community, being able to say you don't you
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: don't necessarily have to feel like you're constantly code switching, right,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: Like you don't need to feel like you need to
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: leave yourself at the door or piece.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Of you at the door to find that code switching.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: So code switching traditionally we're when we talk about code switching,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: we're thinking about language, but when we're talking about cultural identity,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: it's the having to feel like we have to change
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: our tone or the way that we speak, or how
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: we're dressing, how we're presenting to the to the majority culture. Right,
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: So being having to feel like we have to act
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: a certain way when we are in front of the
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: majority culture, but then feeling like, Okay, I can I
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: can be myself when I'm around my friends or my family.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: And so the best way that I say to people is,
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: you know, sometimes code switching comes up with when you're
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: doing a business pitch or you're doing a job interview,
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: you're going to try to present yourself in a certain way.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: But if you're going to a family cookout, you're not
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: going to go dressed or act the way that you
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: went to that job interview at your family cookout, right,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: So that is code switching. It's the changing depending on
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: your environment. But sometimes it does become a little exhausting
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: if you feel like you're constantly doing that and that
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: you're that you once you it's not just it's beyond
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: the job interview, right like, once you have the job,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: if you feel like you're constantly still doing that, what
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: part of you is doing that and it's not allowing
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: you to actually perform your best at work because that
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: is now the priority or that is something that's in
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: the forefront of your mind having to constantly do that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Switch And what are.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Some of the reasons someone might feel compelled to do that, say,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: within a professional work environment.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: I mean most sometimes it's either the environment where they
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: feel that they're the only ones that look like them, Right,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: so if they're a minority in either they're a female
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: and a male dominated industry, or if they are from
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: a person of color in a white dominant type of industry.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: When you don't, when you don't, when there are other
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: people around you that don't look.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Like you, you start to feel like I need to
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: work extra hard to try to prove that I belong
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: here because I'm the only one that looks like me here.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: And then it's also the pressures of I'm not just
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: representing me, I'm representing an entire you know, community, whether
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: that's I'm representing on women or I'm representing all Latinos
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: or blacks, right, So it's like we're we're presenting something
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: bigger than us, so now we have to present it
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: in a certain way.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: And this is more of like the psychological pressures.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: That are we are putting onto ourselves when we're walking
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: into these different environments.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: It sounds exhausting, yes, I mean it also sounds very
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: like you're constantly having to I guess, just judge self,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: judge should I say this? Well, I can't say this.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: It's going to make me sound too this way when
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I should be sounding that way. But the other side
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: of that is with everyone there's a certain amount of
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: learning to read the room right, Right, We've got to
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: know what is appropriate for what contexts.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: So it's like finding that it's navigating all of those
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: things right because you hit the nail on the head.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: It's we have to read the room to know what's
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: appropriate in that room. But and also how do we
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: make sure that what we're that we're not so in
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: our head that it's actually backfiring on us.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Andrea, super super exciting. How do people
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: learn more about you and what you're.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Doing the best way, The best way to follow me
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: is on Instagram at doctor Andrea Glame dot well, doctor
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Andrea Blame, or you can find me at ww dot
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: at doctor Andreaclame dot com.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, and we'll have each of those, both of those
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: linked up here at the show notes page at the
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Trauma Typist podcast dot com. Andrea, super smiring, love talking
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: to you. Thank you so much, Thank you. All right,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: we'll be in touch, all right.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Good bye two